Posts Tagged ‘anzpt’

The Show Must Go On

The United States Government. Check back next week to see if anything changes.

In all seriousness, the last week and a half has been a dark one for the industry, and last week didn’t necessarily feel like the appropriate time to recognize the few people who were fortunate enough to make a few dollars in poker. We must, however, realize that no matter how bleak the situation is with online poker, the live game will continue to go on. The numbers will change, how yet we don’t know, but as long as there are people playing cards, there will be winners and losers. And some version of this column.

It was big news for all of about 14 hours, but there’s no disputing the incredibly impressive accomplishments of Vanessa Selbst and Jason Mercier at NAPT Mohegan Sun.

C/O PokerStars Blog

Selbst won the inaugural NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event in 2010 in a dominant performance. She lead the tournament from wire-to-wire and earned $750,000, putting her on the path that would lead to her becoming a member of Team PokerStars Pro. The logo on her shirt was different, the final seven standing in her way were different, but the ending was the same. Instead of huge chip advantage, she entered heads-up play with Dan Shak in an unusual spot for her, a three-to-one deficit. Shak was no match for fate, as Selbst quickly closed the gap and captured the title for a second straight year, this time for $450,000

C/O PokerStars Blog

The next day was Jason Mercier’s opportunity to repeat history. His 2010 effort was a $25,000 event that drew 35 players, and paid him a juicy $475,000. This year’s high roller lowered the buy-in to $10,000 but drew more than twice as many players (78 to be exact), and again Mercier won his first table to put himself in contention. He reached heads-up play against fellow Team PokerStars Pro member Eugene Katchalov at a slight disadvantage, but quickly erased it. When the final river hit the felt, Mercier had completed the highly unlikely exacta with Selbst and accumulated $246,600 between bounties and his first place prize. For their sake, lets just hope they didn’t get paid out via their PokerStars accounts.

Erik Seidel’s accomplishments thus far in 2011 can be put up against any individual year by any player in the history of the game, and the year’s less than 1/3rd of the way done. To put things in perspective, 4 of the top 5 top money accumulators are the top four finishers in the 2010 WSOP Main Event, the only anomaly on the list being Seidel. So when the final table was set at WPT Hollywood, Seidel was a prohibitive favorite, and by the time he got down to heads-up play with a part time player from Cincinnati, most of the media already had their reports typed up with their finger hovering over their mouse, ready to click send.

Perhaps we should have taken the events that took place in Indiana in to account when trying to make sense of the pokerpocalypse. Just 97 players showed up for a WPT event, the most famous ginger in poker quite literally abandoned her roots, and in the end, the stranglehold that Erik Seidel has held on poker was loosened, if only slightly. Mike Scarborough played an impressive tournament, and succeeded in overcoming a tough final table on his way to a $273,664 payday.

Everyone I Mentioned At WSOPC St. Louis Won a Lot of MoneyWSOP Circuit, Harrah’s St. Louis, Missouri

In my last tournament recap, I mentioned La Sengphet had made her second final table at WSOPC St. Louis, and right after I posted she won the tournament for over $17,000, giving her her second ring of the season. I added a bit at the end to recognize it, and Dan put up a post congratulating her. In it, I mentioned Kyle Cartwright as one of only two players to win two rings at the same stop this season, both of his coming in Tunica. He won a final table that was going on concurrently to La’s, which just happened to be the Main Event in St. Louis.

The unofficial rule amongst the poker media is not to openly root for any one player at a final table. That rule is usurped by the fact that all media subconsciously roots for the big stacks to win during the big confrontations in order to facilitate an early exit from the casino. It is by this that we can judge Michael Kanaan the most popular player of every member of the media present for his win at ANZPT Sydney. The prohibitive chip leader entering play, Kanaan triumphed over his final eight opponents in less than four-and-a-half hours of play, sending people home at just after 5 pm after collecting his $195,714 first place prize, of course.

So much for sharing the wealth. Yet another player added his second WSOP Circuit ring of the season this past week as action moved to Caesers in Las Vegas. Army veteran Jessie Bryant’s job while he was enlisted was similar to the soldiers who were featured in “The Hurt Locker”, but these days his focus has been directed more towards the game of Omaha. Bryant won an Omaha-8/b event a few months ago in Tunica, and to show off the versatility in his skills he decided to change it up a bit in Las Vegas, adding a PLO championship to his poker resume. He is the early leader in the player of the series race in Las Vegas thanks to his score of just under $10,000.

Also well underway in Las Vegas over the past couple of weeks has been the latest incarnation of the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza. Well-known pros have been scattered amongst the lists of those who have cashed in the events held so far, but have began to pop up more and more since the madness of Friday. The most well-known of those players is Chip Jett, who for a long time has been one of the red-named players on Full Tilt. Not content to sit and stare at a blank computer screen, Jett decided to enter Event 20, a $340 No Limit Hold’em event, and promptly won the whole thing for just under $14,000.

There was a Russian invasion on Austria this week, as a pair of high-profile tournament stops in the land of Schwarzenneger were each taken by Russian players. On US soil we saw the end of the Wynn Poker Classic, as well as am interesting event in Tulalip, Washington. And don’t forget about the ANZPT.

Pesky Russian Wins Twitter War on Way to EPT Snowfest CrownHinterglemm, Austria

Photo C/O PokerStars

Twitter has steadily grown in popularity in the poker community over the last three years, and some have wondered when it would become a standard way to pick up information about players sitting at your table. While there hasn’t been a proliferation of Twitter tells and false Twitter tells, we got some real-time Twitter trash talking among two players at the final table of the EPT Snowfest.

It was only appropriate that these two got down to heads-up play. They were relatively even and deep as the heads-up match started, but the match took less than a half hour. Geshkenbein seemed to be channeling his inner Tony G, making two pair to wrest control and throwing salt in the wound, telling Vandersmissen “Don’t be sad… second place is good as well.”

The serious influx of poker players into Austria continued with even more players showing up in Vienna. 555, in fact, to produce a prize pool of almost €1.5 million, with a first place prize of just under €500,000. The chip leader headed into the final eight was Russian Dmitry Gromov, a lead that he would take from wire-to wire at the final table. While this tournament is not destined for American TV airwaves, the whole WPT crew was there, including Matt Savage and the Royal Flush Girls. Mike Sexton and Jesse May did a live stream of the action, with hole cards, and the presentation was top-notch. Gromov outlasted another Russian, Maksim Kolosov by winning a key coin flip on the final hand, and took home €447,840 for his efforts. On top of that he got to do a winner’s interview with Tatjana Pasalic! What a lucky guy.

West Wins Wynn Classic Main EventLas Vegas, Nevada

The biggest tournament action in the US this week was at the Wynn, as the conclusion to another successful Wynn Poker Classic did not disappoint. 212 players put up $5,000, and there were not many weak spots in the field, and the final table featured a collection of online superstars including Annette Obrestad, Tim West, Eric Froelich, and Carter King. West and Obrestad would match up at the end, with the man known as Tmay coming out on top to the tune of over $300,000, his biggest career score.

While tournaments outside of the continental United States were dominated by and large by a Russian contingent, the ANZPT Perth stop was an exception to the rule. After going 0 for his last 12 attempts on the ANZPT, Sydney native Grant Levy finally unleashed all of his stored up run-good at once to take down the Perth event. To make the feat even more impressive, Levy satellited into the tournament, making the $131,000 payday at the end of it all that much sweeter. Levy is just the second player ever to capture both an ANZPT and an APPT title.

Everybody goes on a cold streak in poker from time to time, sometimes reaching several months of bad luck before turning things around. But going four-and-a-half years without recording a tournament cash is something out of a terrible nightmare, as Ernie Holthusen might be able to tell you. Whatever the reason for Holthusen’s long cashless stretch, he made quite a statement in ending that streak, taking home $100,000 at the Tulalip Poker Challenge. Holthusen defeated Scott Clements heads-up, an impressive feat on top of making it that far in the field of 361.

There was poker being played all over the world as the EPT, WPT, WSOPC and ANZPT were in action across four continents this week.

EPT Vienna (Vienna, Austria) Daniel Negreanu was chasing history Sunday, attempting to complete the third stage of the poker “triple crown” by adding an European Poker Tour title to his WSOP bracelets and WPT title. He was also in line to regain the top spot on the All-Time money list. He fell short of both of these goals, settling for 4th place and â‚¬175,000. Michael Eiler of Germany was your winner, banking â‚¬700,000 for his efforts. [PokerStars Blog]

WPT World Poker Finals (Foxwoods, Mashantucket, Connecticut) Just 12 players remain from the 242 who started. Play reached the money after more than three hours of hand-for-hand play Sunday. The slow start eliminated any possibility for a day off Monday for sleeping in … err, players recuperating before the final six get down to business Tuesday. Tom Marchese is the chip leader with over 1.8 million, almost twice that of second place. Jason Mercier, Sorel Mizzi and Hoyt Corkins are among those still in contention. You can find full chip counts and a recap here. [Foxwoods Live]

WSOP Circuit Midwest Regional Championship (Hammond, Indiana) The revamped World Series of Poker Circuit had its first big test as the first of four televised $10K Regional Championships was held this week. 226 players showed up to the Chicago-area Horseshoe Hammond, and the final table featured quite a few familiar names, including Shannon Shorr, Brandon Adams, David “Doc” Sands and Bernard Lee. Jim Anderson parlayed a seat he had won, which was added to the prize pool of a $200 event that he had won earlier in the series and turned it into $525,449. All nine players who made the final table have qualified for the million dollar freeroll that will award a bracelet to the winner at the end of the season. [WSOP]

WSOP-Circuit South Africa (Emerald Casino, South Africa) One of the quirks of the new WSOP Circuit schedule was a brand new stop in South Africa. Well an unofficial official stop that doesn’t count towards the $1 million dollar freeroll or award a ring, but a stop with quite a bit of money on the line nonetheless. Maria Ho finished sixth in this event, while the title was captured by Warren Zackey, who won $223,155 for his efforts. [Bluff South Africa]

ANZPT Darwin (Darwin, New Zealand) The biggest story of this Main Event had to be rapper cum poker player known simply as “Brotha D”. Danny Leaoasavaii, who captured the APPT Main Event in September, is the first to own a title on both the APPT and the ANZPT, as well as the first New Zealander to win on the ANZPT. The true test will come in the summer of 2011 as he looks to challenge Jeff Madsen and Prahlad Friedman as the best poker rapper in the game, which should be pretty anticlimactic. [PokerStars Blog]

Caeser’s Classic & Venetian Deep Stacks (Las Vegas, Nevada) Two tournament series’ with smaller buy-ins are now going strong in Las Vegas as the final Venetian Deep Stacks of the year has gotten underway. Action at Caeser’s is still going strong and attracting some interesting names. Among those who have made final tables in the last week are Barry Shulman (Event 13, 9th) and Kenna James (Event 16, 3rd).

In the Online World… There was some lack of name recognition in the Sunday Majors action, but don’t take that to mean that there wasn’t a whole boatload of money to be won. Amongst those who pocketed six figures were “Zareta” (PokerStars Sunday Million, $230,513), “chickface” (FullTilt $750K Guaranteed, $140,967), “Levan1971” (PokerStars Sunday Warmup, $188,860) and my personal favorite, “monkeybudgie” (FullTilt Sunday Brawl, $106,737)